You may have seen information about a class project posted on DonorsChoose.org. The project targets reading fluency. There are many apps available to help children practice, self-monitor, and improve their reading fluency. When our fluency improves, we read smoother and with better comprehension. Fluency is practiced by reading texts over and over again. We need digital devices to run the apps. I would love iPads, but they are VERY expensive so I asked for iTouches to lower the cost. Our project will not happen without securing more funds and there are only 2 days left to fund this project!

But there is still HOPE! Donors Choose announced an opportunity to boost funding called the Friends and Family Challenge. Every $20 donation, gets us closer to earning a gift card to apply towards our project. Look at the table below to see how it works.

Please help spread the word about our project! Imagine how many people would know about it if each of us did that? Donations can be made in any amount, but they won't count towards the gift cards unless they're at least $20. I believe it is possible to reach 25 donors and earn a $1,000 gift card to fully fund our project with your help.

Reading fluency is just the beginning of the endless possibilities these tools will bring to our classroom.

Today we used this information to calculate how much money our project could earn with each $20 donation. We figured out that ten $20 donations totaled $200 and it would earn us a $250 gift card which would give us a total of $450 towards our project.

Then I asked them how many more donations were needed to get to the next gift card level? So I challenged them to work in teams to find out how much money twenty-five donations would be. As I circulated, some students suggested doubling..."If ten donations = $200, twenty donations = $400."

I said, "I noticed some of you are using doubling as you try to figure this out. Does anyone see how halving could help us get to the final answer?"

Once they saw that five is half of ten, they thought... "If ten donations = $200, then five donations = $100." By doubling and halving ten donations they solved the problem.

So, twenty-five $20 donations = $500. This would earn us a $1,000 gift card and a grand total of $1,500 which is enough to fund our project!

We explored doubling & halving in Unit 7 to develop readiness for multiplication and division. Tomorrow we wrap up our study of Unit 7 and will be doing assessments. Unit 7 explored number patterns to reinforce numeration skills and develop readiness for multiplication and division. It also expanded computation to adding several 1-digit and 2-digit numbers as well as adding and subtracting from large numbers using multiples of 10. Finally we collected, represented and interpreted data.